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The Art of Fugue Soup

If osso bucco is a com­plex sym­phony, baked alaska is a frivol­ous oper­etta and a jam dough­nut is a song by Cliff Richard, then a bowl of fine soup is a fugue. The best soup unites ingredi­ents that act beau­ti­fully togeth­er; sep­ar­ate but always enhan­cing and echo­ing each oth­er, just like a fugue.

As I write this, I’m listen­ing to Bach’s The Art of Fugue. It’s a piece of music I can listen to end­lessly and often do. My fugue soup is the per­fect accom­pani­ment — and very sat­is­fy­ingly it’s not just fugal but frugal.

The only essen­tial thing about this soup is that it should be cooked so lightly as to keep its bright green hue — khaki veget­able soup is more requiem than fugue. But you can vary the ingredi­ents depend­ing on the sea­son. That way your soup will be both dif­fer­ent and the same, as is a fugue.

FUGUESOUP

Serves 4

2 litres veget­able stock

200g pod­ded or frozen petit pois

200g broad beans

2 medi­um cour­gettes, cut into small dice

200g fine asparagus

1 clove gar­lic, finely sliced

4 spring onions or scal­lions, chopped finely

Hand­ful herb flowers such as thyme or chive

Hand­ful chopped chives

Hand­ful torn basil

2 table­spoons olive oil

Season­ing

Bring the stock to a sim­mer. Add the broad beans and blanch for 4 minutes. Remove with a slot­ted spoon and put aside in a bowl. When cool, peel off the leath­ery skins and dis­card. With the stock still at a sim­mer, add the asparagus and one of the diced cour­gettes to the liquid and blanch for 3 minutes. Remove these veget­ables too and put aside. Add the peas. Blanch for no more than 1 minute if they’re frozen and 3 minutes if they’re fresh, before remov­ing and once again put­ting to one side. Reserve the stock.

In a small fry­ing pan, gently heat the chopped spring onions and gar­lic in the olive oil. Allow to soften but not to brown. Add the second diced cour­gette to the fry­ing pan and allow it to soften too. Tip the onions, gar­lic and cour­gette mix­ture into the stock and cook gently for about 3 or 4 minutes. Add half the blanched peas and heat for a fur­ther minute. The cour­gettes and peas should still be bright green — it’s cru­cial not to over­cook the soup and thereby allow shades of com­bat trousers to enter the spec­trum. Pro­cess with a stick blender in the pan until smooth. Just before serving, tip in all the remain­ing blanched veget­ables that you put to one side at the start. Sea­son to taste. Ladle the soup into bowls in which you have placed some shred­ded fresh basil leaves. Top with a hand­ful of chopped chives and some herb flowers.

Eat while listen­ing to my favour­ite per­form­ance of The Art of Fugue, by the Rus­si­an pian­ist Rustem Hayroud­inoff. It’s the ver­sion chosen by nov­el­ist Vikram Seth for the CD that he com­piled to accom­pany his exquis­ite music­al nov­el An Equal Music. So in true fugal coun­ter­point, you can eat fugue soup, while listen­ing to the The Art of Fugue and read­ing about The Art of Fugue at the same time. What could pos­sibly be more fugal?

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21 thoughts on “The Art of Fugue Soup”

A lovely post — your crock­ery and the pho­to­graphy of it is knock­out. Lovely idea too. Your blog must be the best fusion of cook­ing, pho­to­graphy and the arts out there. A lit­er­ary and comest­ible treat.

That soup looks deli­cious, espe­cially in those beau­ti­ful bowls. I’ve been look­ing for clas­sic­al music to listen to, todays writ­ing will be to the soundtrack of Bach, thanks for the recom­mend­a­tion.

I think this is your pho­to­graphy at its very best Charlie. Espe­cially the close ups of the pea pods. You need to put all these recipes into a cook book, I know that every­one else will agree with me!

I will keep revis­it­ing the images of the peas — they are abso­lutely beau­ti­ful. A veget­able that can only be eaten fresh from the garden or at a stretch from a farm­ers’ mar­ket picked that morn­ing — while listen­ing to Bach of course!

I couldn’t agree more, Sally. Starchy, fresh peas can be such a dis­ap­point­ment. Frozen peas are so much bet­ter, if the fresh ones aren’t just picked. I once had a sweet corn party in the garden with a camp fire and a pan of boil­ing water. The time between pick­ing and cook­ing the corn was pre­cisely 1 minute — just long enough to peel the out­er lay­ers off!

Oh wow — I’m so enjoy­ing your writ­ing and then the fla­vours reach out and entice me in even more. Can’t wait to try this recipe.
I laughed out loud at Cliff Richard equated with a jam dough­nut! Sug­ar coated lips and all.